It gets frickin’ cold at night, so good luck finding a home with some heat.
Personally, I love staying at airbnbs when I travel. I love the homeyness, the ease, the extra room to spread out. And it’s usually a lot less of a hit on your wallet. So I was over the moon with the idea of airbnbing in Cusco. Afterall, it’s a world heritage site with so much of its architecture dating back to the Incans and to the Spanish conquest. To me, age–when it comes to architecture–equals beauty. Plus, four friends traveling together…airbnbing was a no-brainer. We felt lucky when we stumbled on a three bed, two bath, two-story home on Avenida Pardo–a small side street (call it alley) in the historical center of town. Cusco is more than eleven thousand feet above sea level, and one member of our party was asthmatic, so the fact that this home was down the street from the hospital was a huge bonus.
Since we were aware of the temperature drop at night, we assumed there would be heat. But remember what your fifth grade teacher would say about ASSuming?! Once we started delving into amenities, something peculiar kept coming up–there was no mention of heat in many of the listings. So praise the Lord for Avenida Pardo, which clearly stated, “central heat or heaters.”
Upon arrival, the house looked just as advertised. Spacious, wooden floors, bursting with character. I did notice, however, that although the sun was beaming down on the city, none of that warmth was making its way inside. I attributed that to us being situated along an alleyway and getting no direct sunlight. But that was okay. We were hungry and rearing to go discover Cusco, so all we had to do was crank up the heat and allow things to get nice and toasty for our return.
But as I looked around, my peepers weren’t exactly connecting with any heating vents or radiators. “Excuse me, how do we turn on the heat,” I asked our host in my best attempt at Spanish. She pointed in the direction of the living room, so I walked over expecting to find a thermometer, a switch, a torch, two logs and some matches, anything. Nope. I turned toward her again and she continued pointing. Carefully following the bend of her arm, my eyes stopped at a small black object. It was a space heater. Something you would get at a Staples to warm your six by eight foot box of an office. And here we were in a two-story, eight room space. And then she gave a disclaimer: “Pero, no lo deje encendido por mas de treinta minutos a la vez/But don’t leave on for more than 30 minutes at a time.” Except, as we would later find out, it took twenty-five minutes for the thing to warm up, so by the time we finally felt a modicum of heat, we had to turn it back off again for fear of setting off sparks and sending the entire historical district up in flames.
“Dont’ worry, you’ll be fine. There are many alapaca blankets to keep you warm at night,” our host said as she climbed into her car and drove out of sight. Now, the alpaca blankets were awesome! Two of those in addition to my comforter, and I was having night sweats. But they don’t work as well when you need the freedom to be mobile.
Cusco’s temperature doesn’t vary much throughout the year. The days range between a deceptive 66 and 72–deceptive because the strong sun makes it feel as if it’s fifteen degrees warmer. But then enter night, which averages between 46 degrees (during the more summer-like October to March) and a not so balmy 31 (during the more wintery months of April to September). Guess which months we were there? But then we see a little old Peruvian lady in traditional garb and think, she’s wearing a skirt…we’ll be alright. Until we realize the skirt is made from alpaca wool, and there is some other thick petticoat-like layer under that, and she’s wearing two pairs of alpaca socks and leg warmers. There’s also a serape-like wrap over an alpaca jacket over a thick vest over an alpaca sweater over some kind of shirt, topped off by a hat, under which is some kind of head wrap. That’s when a mental flag gets thrown on the play, and it dawns on us that no, we most definitely will not be alright.
The moment the sun drifts beyond the horizon, it’s confirmed that the woman definitely knows something we don’t because that toasty seventy one degrees that felt more like eighty-five only an hour before, now feels like twenty-five degrees. And it registers in our brains that the math is not going to work out in our favor. Spacious 2-story house, freezing temperatures, four people, a Smurf-sized heating apparatus. And so we go back to the house and find ourselves huddled around the only means of warmth like characters in a Charles Dickens’ novel. Thirty minutes after we’ve turned it on, five minutes after it’s finally achieved some warmth, our host’s words of warning come back to us: “Pero, no lo deje encendido por mas de treinta minutos.” But I’m skinny. Meaning there’s not a lot of insulation there. Meaning that if the world ever comes to an end, I’ll be one of the first to succumb. When food runs out and our bodies start using its own fat for fuel, mine won’t have enough reserves to dip into. So I actually contemplate leaving the thing on indefinitely and seeing what exactly might happen. Because I’m cold. I’m really cold. We all are. And I’m at the point where I’m willing to risk complete fiery annihilation of a world heritage site for some warmth.
Cusco is stunning. Had we been more comfortable temperature-wise in our temporary home there, the trip would have been that much better.
Tips:
- Make like an onion and layer. You’ll be down to your t-shirt in the day, but when the sun goes down and it feels like lose-a-toe frostbite territory, you’ll sure be happy you did.
- Don’t let your worry about overpacking cause you to only bring along that cute little lightweight down jacket you got from Uniqlo. Come night, you’ll wish you had that Game-Of-Thrones-Winter-Is-Coming-Jon-Snow-style pelt. Seriously, even if you don’t plan on being out much at night, or early morning, you’ll probably still need it…in your airbnb. Ha!
- Specifically ask if the home has central heat OR a heater. Big ass difference. If it’s a heater (which it will most probably be) request as many as possible. Chances are they don’t have enough to accommodate and even if they did, the wiring in old houses is so suspect, they won’t want you running all of them at the same time, but try to get at least two.
- Ask hotels about their heating situation. In speaking to others who’ve made the trip to Cusco and stayed in hotels, it seems heat is not a guarantee there either, and some are equipped only with space heaters. (Although on the plus side, a hotel room provides a lot smaller area to heat than a house)
- Water shuts off in some places at night. Not sure why. We made sure to ask our host beforehand if there was the availability of water at nights, and they had just installed a water tank that would guarantee that.
- You might want to also ask about the availability of HOT water.
- It might be called toilet paper, but you can’t throw it into many of the toilets there. Why? Something having to do with their fragile plumbing system. But it doesn’t really matter. Just don’t do it. So, where is it supposed to go, you might be wondering. The nearby wastebasket. Yeah, I know. I know…
Next post…We’ll stick with Cusco and how being 11,152 feet above sea level can make you wonder if your lungs are about to explode!
